Recently, Robert Dur, Professor of Economics of Incentives and Performances at Erasmus School of Economics, appeared on a broadcast of the NPO Radio 1 programme ‘Money or your life’ to discuss the winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Dur discusses what receiving that prize means for the scientists, but also what it says for the rest of the world.
Daron Acemoğlu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson have won the Nobel Prize in Economics for their research into inequality between countries, which was announced on Monday, 14 October. Such a prize is important for the economists who win it, but it also says a lot about what economists consider to be the most important research in their field - and thus about the role of economics in the world.
That Acemoğlu won the Nobel Prize in Economics, is not very surprising. The question was more for which research he would win it, and when, Dur argues. For instance, Acemoğlu's research is not only highly influential in the field of inequality, but he has also done a lot of research on labour markets and automation, for instance.
Recurring themes
In recent years, there has been a trend in the topics of Nobel Prize-winning research: inequality. For example, Acemoğlu, Johnson and Robinson's research is about why some countries are rich, and others poor, and last year's winning research was about gender inequality. What can be noted in addition is that economic research is increasingly looking at human behaviour. A few years ago, for instance, the Nobel Prize in Economics was won by a psychologist. In economics, this can be seen through the huge growth in research into behavioural economics, which looks more into how and why people make certain choices. Hence, the focus in economics seems to be shifting more and more from wealth and growth to more modern issues, such as inequality.
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You can watch the full episode from NPO Radio 1, 14 October 2024, here.
